Names of TfL Overground lines

[New Haven Neil]

Well at least the BedPan line was descriptive of its route!  For someone from the norf, these new names mean precisely nothing.

[Southernman46]

What an utter waste of time - the driver for this was apparently that the OG line itself as a solid orange entity was confusing to passengers - Now it's been completely diluted and even more confusing.

As usual it's pandering to the idiots - SO stop watching Love Island whilst using an escalator - get your head out of your phone - look at the signage - and learn to read a map and stop relying on others to help with every slightly difficult situation in your existence .................. 🙄

 

An old white guy on horseback ......................................(who witnesses the above everyday)

Edited February 15 by Southernman46

[Forward!]

24 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

What an insulting post!

 

Maybe reading up on what those "dead white guys on horses" actually did would be an idea....

 

 

 

Jason

 

I don't want to be guilty of taking this thread anywhere near the concept of contested heritage (I believe the Daily Mail and the Guardian both have more appropriate forums for that sort of thing, depending on your political bent). But it is worth noting that there is no such thing as "neutral" language and no such thing as "settled" history. Two different people can look upon a statue of a dead white guy on a horse and one may be inspired to think that that 150 year old commemoration represents something pertinent to British identity in the 21st century, and another can be wholly repulsed by the exact same thing that statue was intended to commemorate. Both are entirely valid reactions. The only thing that is true is that the statue represents what those who created it at the time valued, celebrated and intended to use to create their own national idendity. And inevitably, that was a rather narrow elite who got the opportunity to do that. How much those values can, and indeed, should define a 21st century notion of UK national identity- well your opinion is as equally valid as mine (and I've been absolutely clear in a previous post about mine).

 

Everybody adds their own layers of meaning to how we name public spaces, and, by selecting who we choose to honour, what we wish to convey to the world about any collective sense of identity. Our history is re-written every single day. And we all have our own stories to explain how we arrived at what we think we are today.

 

I think the recent announcement is an interesting reflection of where we are as a city in 2024. A little trite perhaps, but not fundamentally any different to how things were done in the past. The future is impossible to predict. Will people in 2054, 2104 collectively remember the "Lionesses", or will it have taken on a completely different meaning? Who knows? My only real gripe was I just wished they'd come up with some slightly snappier names!

 

Anyway, let's steer clear of the whole hornet's nest of contested heritage. These are complex discussions and one thing I've learned in my day job (I work in the heritage sector) is any attempt to iron them out in an online space is doomed to fail. I apologise if my language was indiscrete.

 

Will

[Rivercider]

5 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

MIldmay is a bit awkward to say and people won't know if it's pronounced milled or mylde.

The name Mildmay always reminds me of the railway murder in 1914 at or near Mildmay Park,

 

cheers

[Steamport Southport]

2 minutes ago, Forward! said:

 

I don't want to be guilty of taking this thread anywhere near the concept of contested heritage (I believe the Daily Mail and the Guardian both have more appropriate forums for that sort of thing, depending on your political bent). But it is worth noting that there is no such thing as "neutral" language and no such thing as "settled" history. Two different people can look upon a statue of a dead white guy on a horse and one may be inspired to think that that 150 year old commemoration represents something pertinent to British identity in the 21st century, and another can be wholly repulsed by the exact same thing that statue was intended to commemorate. Both are entirely valid reactions. The only thing that is true is that the statue represents what those who created it at the time valued, celebrated and intended to use to create their own national idendity. And inevitably, that was a rather narrow elite who got the opportunity to do that. How much those values can, and indeed, should define a 21st century notion of UK national identity- well your opinion is as equally valid as mine (and I've been absolutely clear in a previous post about mine).

 

Everybody adds their own layers of meaning to how we name public spaces, and, by selecting who we choose to honour, what we wish to convey to the world about any collective sense of identity. Our history is re-written every single day. And we all have our own stories to explain how we arrived at what we think we are today.

 

I think the recent announcement is an interesting reflection of where we are as a city in 2024. A little trite perhaps, but not fundamentally any different to how things were done in the past. The future is impossible to predict. Will people in 2054, 2104 collectively remember the "Lionesses", or will it have taken on a completely different meaning? Who knows? My only real gripe was I just wished they'd come up with some slightly snappier names!

 

Anyway, let's steer clear of the whole hornet's nest of contested heritage. These are complex discussions and one thing I've learned in my day job (I work in the heritage sector) is any attempt to iron them out in an online space is doomed to fail. I apologise if my language was indiscrete.

 

Will

 

Was that written by AI?

 

 

 

Jason

[RichardT]

3 hours ago, Mike Buckner said:

People used to understand the benefit of neutral names.

Elizabeth, Jubilee and Victoria aren't "neutral", if by that you mean politically neutral.

 

RichardT

[RichardT]

51 minutes ago, Southernman46 said:

As usual it's pandering to the idiots - SO stop watching Love Island whilst using an escalator - get your head out of your phone - look at the signage - and learn to read a map and stop relying on others to help with every slightly difficult situation in your existence

Absolutely.  While we're at it let's abolish all the colours of all the other lines - just print them all in black which will save money - and tell that idiot Harry Beck to get lost with his daft diagrammatic tube map.  People should just automatically know where to go in the largest city in the UK because it's just common sense.

 

And I'm absolutely confident that your reaction would have been exactly the same had the lines been named "Middleton", "Camilla", "Boris", "Farage", "Truss"  and "Thatcher" - because your objection to this development has absolutely nothing to do with the names.

 

RichardT

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

What an insulting post!

 

Maybe reading up on what those "dead white guys on horses" actually did would be an idea....

 

 

 

Jason

Oh, come on!

 

I certainly won't begrudge the Duke of Wellington his two statues, nor General Fochs outside Victoria Station, since both actively resisted aggression, and Britain owes a lot to them and all the men they had under them.

 

Who else is there? A load of royals, including two of the worst monarchs (Richard I and George IV) that Britain has ever had . A number of imperialist aggressors. Okay, so it could be said they were only doing their job, but in the case of the Duke of Cambridge, they seem to have done it particularly badly. Then there's General Haig.

 

Who, exactly, did you have in mind?

[APOLLO]

London Underground / Overground - easy peasy !!

 

 

And the overground

 

 

Wish we had a fraction of this 'up ere !!!!!

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

9 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Oh, come on!

 

I certainly won't begrudge the Duke of Wellington his two statues, nor General Fochs outside Victoria Station, since both actively resisted aggression, and Britain owes a lot to them and all the men they had under them.

 

Who else is there? A load of royals, including two of the worst monarchs (Richard I and George IV) that Britain has ever had . A number of imperialist aggressors. Okay, so it could be said they were only doing their job, but in the case of the Duke of Cambridge, they seem to have done it particularly badly. Then there's General Haig.

 

Who, exactly, did you have in mind?

 

We have this guy in Wigan !!!

 

 

Brit15

[Jeremy Cumberland]

28 minutes ago, RichardT said:

While we're at it let's abolish all the colours of all the other lines - just print them all in black which will save money

Don't you remember this?

 

Actually, this is a modern one with the Circle Line that doesn't go in a circle, and some of the patterns have changed. I'm sure the Circle Line was just an empty outline, and I had in mind that one line (the District, perhaps) had black circles. The Northern, Victoria and Metropolitan Lines are the same as I remember. Of course the Fleet Jubilee Line didn't exist back then, and the Hammersmith and City was part of the Metropolitan.

Edited February 15 by Jeremy Cumberland

[EddieB]

3 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

I can't agree that "Weaver" is inspired. I am pretty sure that most folk would be much more likely to associate the word "weaver" with the cotton weavers in Lancashire, the wool weavers in Yorkshire or the tweed weavers in Scotland (the borders and/or the various islands). The word does not conjure up the east end of London.

 

Yours, Mike.

Named after Jackie Weaver (of parish council fame) or a railway junction associated with an accident of 1975?

[MyRule1]

Apart from the Goblin line which has been raised earlier my only concern is using just one colour and name for the Enfield/Chingford/Chestnut services. Someone vat Hackney Downs could be misled by this and end up in Enfield rather than Chingford. I guess it's down to the same units being used on all three services.

[Bernard Lamb]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Quite, I'm pretty sure they weren't dead while they were on the horse, and I don't thnk they died by falling orf.

William Rufus?

Good or bad it has certainly got people discussing it. Which is presumably what the Mayor wanted.

In general I like the idea and most of the names seem to be rather well choosen, with a good mix of periods.

Bernard

[Mike Buckner]

1 hour ago, RichardT said:

Elizabeth, Jubilee and Victoria aren't "neutral", if by that you mean politically neutral.

 

RichardT

 

I entirely agree.

 

Boris Johnson's fawning attempt at a knighthood doesn't impress me at all.

 

My point is, that it doesn't matter which way a politically coloured name leans, it will appal/offend someone, by virtue of its apparent political leaning. It is, by its nature, divisive.

 

Which is why a *genuinely* neutral name is greatly to be preferred.

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

8 hours ago, MikeB said:

I've just seen the announcement by TfL that the Overground lines are to have individual names and map colours rather than the generic orange.  While identifying individual routes seems a good idea, am I alone in thinking that the names are not very helpful and will not age well?

  https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/london-overground/overground-line-naming

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/15/london-overground-new-names-and-colours-for-six-lines-revealed

I like the idea. Obviously some of them originally had names (North London, East London etc.) although I can see how that could sometimes be confusing with the existing names of tube lines, or simply because the North London line also goes to East London and so on.

 

The names themselves I’m not so sure about. Windrush I like, but there are other areas with links to Caribbean communities as well, so will people immediately make the link? Some of the others possibly have a similar issue, in that I like the idea of honouring the person or group they’re named for but is there a sufficiently obvious link to the particular area served, as opposed to some other area?

 

In terms of branding, my concern would be that some of the colours are going to look very similar to the way the DLR is already shown on the tube map (with parallel turquoise lines). I must admit when this was originally mentioned a few months ago I thought they would go for a DLR-style system, where the whole network is shown in one colour on the main tube map but then the DLR-only maps show the branches in different shades (see here). The Northern line could probably benefit from a similar style of map. Edit: no idea if Tramlink would benefit from something similar, or if it will be getting it.

 

The one that seems a bit unfortunate to me is the Liberty line. I suspect I won’t be the only one to notice that, as well as the “historical independence of the people of Havering” it could also represent the line’s independence and distance from the rest of the Overground network. (Off-topic, I’ve never entirely understood why this isolated line became part of the Overground. In some ways if it’s TfL-operated it would almost make more sense if it had Elizabeth Line branding, as it does at least connect with that even if there’s no possibility of through running.

 

7 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Such names in time simply become familiar to the point of invisibility, and their relevance diminishes in other respects. Piccadilly hardly refers to Cockfosters or Heathrow, Central could apply to any tube line, and the Northern has the southernmost station on the network. No-one notices any more. 

Some of them are the names of the original private companies, so Central London, Piccadilly & Brompton etc. Others aren’t - yes, the Northern line serves a lot of North London but it also goes very far south to Morden, running on what was originally called the City & South London Railway.

 

7 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Not as bad as Elizabeth ............................... with all due respect, Ma'am, I still prefer Crossrail.

One of the problems with that is that TfL doesn’t really seem to have decided if ‘Elizabeth Line’ is supposed to represent a mode (like ‘Underground’) or a line name (like ‘Piccadilly’). If they had two or three Crossrail lines, for instance, it could be ‘the Crossrail Elizabeth line’ and the other lines could have the same purple roundels but a different line colour on the map. And also I don’t particularly accept the argument that Queen Elizabeth II should have a line named after her just ‘because Queen Victoria already has one’; my understanding is that the Victoria line is named after the main line station, itself named after the queen, rather than more directly.

Edited February 15 by 009 micro modeller

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

Suffragette similar. But. now my kids will want to go on the line, which is a good thing. 

Actually, now that I think about it there is a possible issue with this - how many “hilarious” puns on the word ‘suffer’ are going to be made every time there’s disruption to the service?

 

5 hours ago, Forward! said:

Good idea- I have found getting about on the Overground increasingly tricky, especially if there was disruption because you basically had to memorise the entire system to work out where that disruption was and whether it would affect your part of it.

I can’t really disagree with this but surely the same issue applies for Thameslink and the various South London National Rail routes, which if anything are even more complex. The difference possibly being that even on the high-frequency sections they place more emphasis on scheduled departure times, so you can memorise a station to change at and time of connecting train rather than a whole map.

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

As usual it's pandering to the idiots - SO stop watching Love Island whilst using an escalator - get your head out of your phone - look at the signage - and learn to read a map and stop relying on others to help with every slightly difficult situation in your existence .................. 

 

I know exactly the sort of people you mean and agree with that bit. But on the other hand, why make it unnecessarily difficult to use a public transport network?

[Nearholmer]

8 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

At a time when much of the country is losing its bus services (our village now has one a week) then for the well-provisioned capital to be spending £6m on rebranding rail services seems a little hard to swallow.

I’m afraid that betrays rather a deep misunderstanding of how people refer to and use transport in London These lines don’t have fixed names now, and hard as that may be to comprehend from a distance, that is a practical problem, it even limits the use people make of them.

For practical convenience they have to be called something; some cities use line numbers, some line colours, some names, but they all designate routes somehow, and in London it’s names, backed with colours on maps for rail, and numbers for buses.

 

Its doing things like this that makes public transport work in huge conurbations, and it’s because the wonderful “national rail” model, with its confused fare structures, and inability to present a cogent picture to potential users, has done these lines no favours, wasted them to some degree, that they’ve been transferred to TfL, who know how to do urban transport properly.

 

As to the actual names chosen, some I think will work well, but some are, as others have said, rather a mouthful, too many syllables, and that is a disadvantage when giving directions.

 

 

Edited February 15 by Nearholmer

[DY444]

6 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

I disagree with those complaining. It's a clear and easy way to identify the different routes available on overground.

The names are good. Of course they aim to be more inclusive. As I said before, weaver and windrush are inspired - the history they link to, what they represent, the way they sound. 

 

The link to Wembley is okay, my issue with lionesses is not any "political correctness", only the way it sounds.

 

Suffragette similar. But. now my kids will want to go on the line, which is a good thing. 

 

The cost of doing this is minor, compared the the value of an easy to use network for visitors, tourists, occasional users etc. Not everyone is an expert and the way it's divided up and displayed is in the best traditions of London underground mapping. 

 

Perhaps if you were a London council tax payer you might think differently.  We are about to face an increase of 8% in the mayoral levy whilst the incumbent of said office continues to spend money like it's going out of fashion.

[Nova Scotian]

4 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Perhaps if you were a London council tax payer you might think differently.  We are about to face an increase of 8% in the mayoral levy whilst the incumbent of said office continues to spend money like it's going out of fashion.

My partner is about to be. And she'll be far more able to get around London quickly and effectively, especially early on in living there, if the lines are clearly labelled and named.

TFL annual revenue is 9bn GBP. They just spent a paltry 6m GBP on a redesign of the wayfinding map that their customers use to find their way through their services.

This isn't about a branding/rebranding - this is about the use of those lines and clarity on what services are available. They then needed to create the names - which is the process you saw.

 

8% increase in property tax where I am (similar to council tax) because of inflation. And we're horribly under-served with public transport. I'd rather pay tax and have access to reliable, decent service that is easy to use. But of course some of it isn't reliable at the moment - because of more than a decade of austerity meaning they couldn't replace the Central Line rolling stock, delayed the refurbishment, and now they can't get enough trains in the network to serve the demand. Central government has spent 12+ years now downloading more costs to local authorities, most of whom are at breaking point. 

There were about 3.3bn passenger journeys on TFL last year. Don't begrudge losing local service to another area having service - there should be reliable, accessible public transport in all communities in the UK and finger pointing at any city or region hides the real issue of a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure, decades of neglect, and the current focus on private car owners which is unfathomable.

[009 micro modeller]

14 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Its doing things like this that makes public transport work in huge conurbations, and it’s because the wonderful “national rail” model, with its confused fare structures, and inability to present a cogent picture to potential users, has done these lines no favours, wasted them to some degree, that they’ve been transferred to TfL, who know how to do urban transport properly.

As I understood it, part of the rationale for the original Overground network (the ones that were previously run by Silverlink Metro, under-used or run-down inner-city lines once shown in edged white on the tube map) was the idea that they were almost entirely within Greater London and, if railway history had been slightly different, they might have become part of the Underground network anyway (the Metropolitan did, after all, and that’s a ‘proper’ railway that extends a very long way from central London). Equally the further reaches of the Met (to Aylesbury) are now National Rail, which I think also makes sense in a modern context for outer-suburban lines. The point being that they should be operated in a way that works well now, not one dictated by who owned which bit of railway several decades ago, and whether that company merged into BR or the LPTB.

[KingEdwardII]

29 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

For practical convenience they have to be called something;

Hmm, we don't seem to have done that for most of our mainline railways, yet plenty of folk travel on them with few problems.

 

Yours, Mike.

[KingEdwardII]

3 hours ago, EddieB said:

Named after Jackie Weaver...

Maybe even named after a certain navigable river in Cheshire...

 

Yours, Mike.

[Arun Sharma]

10 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

MIldmay is a bit awkward to say and people won't know if it's pronounced milled or mylde.

My father worked just by Mildmay Park on the Balls Pond Road [for close on 30 years] in what the local gentry like to call "Upper Islington". He told me that the locals pronounced it, "Mama Park". I suspect now that area has become 'gentrified' there would be few folk around who had ever heard the local pronounciation. But that's how the locals pronounced it in the '50s to '70s.